SLES 15 for SAP Applications: Bridge Builder and More

In the more than eight years that Suse and SAP have been working together on Hana, numerous innovations have been developed and made available to users specifically for the beneficial use of Hana, for example to minimize downtimes, optimize performance or simplify the deployment and management of Hana systems.

The SAP-Suse partnership goes back to 1999. The figures quoted by SAP at Sapphire in May speak for themselves: 25,000 Hana licenses sold, 8500 S/4 licenses.

Suse SLES for SAP Applications is used almost 100 percent as the recommended and preferred Linux operating system platform for Hana systems. And this is in versions 11 and 12.

With the new version SLES for SAP Applications 15, users can derive even greater benefits from their Hana-based solutions. The jump in version number from 12 to 15 is due to the fact that the number 13 is not necessarily associated with luck in Europe and the number 14 in Asia.

Multiple worlds, one platform

What are the core features and benefits of SLES 15 for SAP Applications? The basis for the SAP version with SAP-specific features has always been the respective general version of Suse SLES.

The new operating system platform version provides user companies and developers with an effective lever for bridging the gap between next-generation software-defined infrastructures and traditional IT infrastructures.

The bottom line is that SLES enables enterprises to deploy and transition business-critical workloads and applications across on-premise and public cloud environments. And they can do it quickly and easily.

This type of modern and agile IT use goes by the synonym "multimodal" and can be implemented in different mixed variants using a uniform code base - in both SAP and non-SAP environments.

SLES 15 thus represents a "Multimodal Operating System (OS)". And, another highlight: version 15 combines or supports containerized and traditional development environments, including the combination legacy applications/microservices.

Incidentally, Suse Manager 3.2 with its enterprise management functionality is closely related to SLES 15. Also new: the SLES variant Suse Enterprise High Performance Computing (HCP) 15.

SLES 15 for SAP Applications with its far-reaching and to a large extent unique specific functionalities especially for mission-critical SAP Hana deployment has been available since July and, in addition to the multimodality outlined above, includes numerous new features in terms of high availability (with minimization of possible downtimes), additional SAP high-performance options or further optimization options for the deployment of Hana system landscapes.

For example, NV-DIMM (Non-Volatile Dual in-line Memory Module Support) for disk-less databases supports immediate database recovery after a reboot. Which means a shortened re-system availability.

In addition, new workload memory protection is provided to replace familiar page cache management and deliver additional Hana system performance optimizations.

Or there are features in SLES 15 for SAP Applications (Wizard options, SAP Server Patter and others) that support an even easier and an accelerated system installation including automation features of SAP Hana environments.

In summary: As a multimodal operating system platform, Suse SLES 15 for SAP Applications integrates cloud-based operating models as well as traditional on-premise concepts and provides SAP users with further additional innovative and beneficial functions for mission-critical Hana deployment.